TV Review: Hostages season 1 Episode 9 "Loose Ends"

Empty Lighthouse is a reader-supported site. This article may contain affiliate links to Amazon and other sites. We earn a commission on purchases made through these links.

Yikes. That was my reaction after watching "Loose Ends". Once again Hostages fails to deliver. They set themselves up multiple times to provide some quality storytelling and answers - and took the easy way out every time.

The episode picks up right where last episode left off. Ellen is threatening to inject Duncan's wife with a lethal dose of morphine if she doesn't get answers from Duncan.

It would seem this is a situation Duncan can't save with a menacing stare and a gun.

You would think that he would give at least a half answer to Ellen to satisfy her enough to put the morphine down, no?

Wrong. Instead we get a vague "the president isn't innocent" and a doctor (straight up deus ex machina) intervening to diffuse the situation.

Show some stones, Hostages. The audience should be rewarded for watching the build up in tension to scenes like this. Not get a slap in the face.

Back in unrealistic land, the head secret service guy has gone from having a "hunch" to thinking Ellen is the "common denominator leading to the president" and that she is being coerced. Okay - he's clearly going to die later. Can't have a good guy find out, can we?! Especially since Hostages put the husband Brian in the room with him - alone.

Why introduce a dramatic angle and have the head of secret service get involved to make the story that much more complex? Good question.

Good thing Hostages didn't do that because that seems like hard work *rolls eyes*.

To top it all off, not only did Brian say nothing was wrong, but he reiterates to Ellen later that they should go to law enforcement for help!

You can't make this stuff up.

Hostages then goes into full on panic mode. That usually happens when shows tank with critics and ratings. You can recognize this by stories that seemingly come out of nowhere, disguising themselves as dramatic moments.

When in reality, they come off as cheap attempts to keep their audience invested (if they haven't already checked out). Sandrine and Kramer hooking up certainly qualifies as that.

Thank god it was super unoriginal with Kramer touching Sandrine's bruises from the bullet - if Hostages is going to go this route, might as well go all in.

To help that cause, they make Archer out to be Sandrine's former sexy time partner, as well as a jealous douche.

Another random hookup that falls into this category is the NSA guy and the first lady's sister.

What's funny about it is the only thing we learn out of the whole scene is the NSA guy likes to quote Churchill. Guess he's a history buff.

Duncan and his cronies decide that the secret service guy knows too much, so they have to kill him. They hire a gang and lure him to a corner, only to have Kramer block him out with a huge truck and Sandrine fake an accident with the secret service guy's wife.

Despite the fact that Kramer and Sandrine's motive seems to be out of this weird lust, I can't really explain how bad of a hairpin twist this is.

Go watch the scene in Breaking Bad where Walt and Jesse fake an accident with Hank's wife if you want to see how it is done right.

Just like the first scene, the secret service guy demands a meeting with the Chief of Staff. Oh no! Could he be onto one of the major players in this conspiracy? Of course not, because this show takes the easy way out.

When you do that, the audience never feels the tension - because it always will return to the status-quo somehow.

Besides being cheap, the secret service guy is going to hear the Chief of Staff reveal the assassination plot, ask for a deal and not arrest him? Seriously? Isn't this show on CBS? Can't they get some government official (if they don't have the common sense to see it) to tell them how asinine this scene is?

One thing about Hostages panic strategy is it doesn't give you a lot of time to dwell on insane issues in the story because another one is always right around the corner. Because they like having weird characters quote random people in history, the first lady's sister quotes Moses and poisons the Chief of Staff - who dies of a heart attack.

Why not show someone watching the Chief of Staff meeting the secret service guy to at least help build up some tension before doing this? Because Hostages sucks, that's why.

I'm kind of glad they have the secret service guy killed - I was sick of him getting close to figuring stuff out only to be incomprehensibly turned away from it.

Ellen's main plot this episode involved placing an item from Duncan into the scrub room she'll be operating at. Through some trickery of her own, she figures out that the liquid is a bone marrow preservative for leukemia patients.

I applaud Hostages for making it difficult for Ellen to test the president's blood by having his own personal doctor insist on doing it. That's about all the praise this episode is getting this week.

The final "twist" involved Ellen revealing that Duncan's wife and the president have the "same rare" blood type and would be a perfect match for a "bone marrow transplant".

Also - they are father and daughter. When asked why not just ask for the bone marrow, Duncan responds "because if he knew she was alive, he'd kill her."

Ooooh, spooky.

Seriously, I know there are rare blood types. But rare enough that you have to assassinate the president to get a bone marrow transplant? These people ever heard of the internet? You can get anything on there!

You know that scene in movies where characters take a long fall, tumble down a mountain or survive a plane crash then they kiss the ground thanking god that they made it out of there alive?

That is the feeling I get when I watch this show.